Sometimes people ask me how I could work for one employer for so long — I am an anomaly among my peers in that respect. I often answer frankly, inertia. It is easier to just stay put than to consider other options before me.
The purpose party was supposed to help me get a grasp on what I REALLY wanted and unfortunately, I think I was not completely honest with myself. I felt at that time that what I wanted was to teach, to lead people to those aHa moments (I do love that) but as I got closer to doing training as a real thing, the shine wore off.
Then I wasn’t sure any more.
And while I know a big part of me definitely wants to be able to say “I’m an author” — it scares the hell out of me not just to make a leap but to take a single real step in that direction. Oh, I have made a few steps, but nothing that takes me out of my comfort zone or risks my leaving my employer or anything like that.
However, I am regularly challenging myself to push my perceived boundaries and to help with that, I am keeping regular rolling TO DO lists to which I can add and strikethrough tasks (and projects broken into tasks) as I complete them. I love the warm fuzzy feeling of adding that strikethrough formatting, even if it only lasts a day or two until I remove the task altogether.
Unfortunately, the list isn’t in priority order so I end up working on either what is easy or what is appealing and some of the more daunting tasks get ignored. Until I get to the point where only daunting or uninteresting tasks remain. Then I stare at it the way someone who tries to shop for “dried beans” off someone else’s shopping list looks at the overwhelming variety of options in the packaged legume section at the supermarket.
Last night was a perfect example of how easily I can be paralyzed by choice. I have been working on curating a portfolio and I should have finished this days ago but I keep wondering if I have everything in there than I need to accurately represent my creative skills. Now, I can select from everything I’ve ever done but I know I neither want nor need to put everything in there (it would be several volumes). Instead, I wrote an overview. Except that I started second-guessing my overview (oh! I forgot to include X!) and as a result I spent 30 minutes avoiding dealing with it because I didn’t know whether I should just put in everything then go back and trim, or whether to trim what I had done before going forward, or whether I should go back and revise the outline then stick to that.
So chances are, if you find me refreshing my Facebook page or just clicking aimlessly, I am avoiding a choice. It’s not because I can’t make the choice, it’s that I don’t know where to start.